"Pallet Town, I'm back!" Ash shouted at the edge of town, both hands flung high.
Misty just shook her head.
No matter how much he'd been through, Ash's core hadn't budged an inch. The sight of home was enough to make him whoop like a kid.
This trip had been much shorter than the journey for the Indigo Plateau Conference, but it wasn't on the same scale of danger. It was like swapping a normal route for a major endgame dungeon.
Battles used to be friendly. Gym challenges were straightforward, and a loss wasn't the end of the world. You worked harder and won the next time. Now it had turned into life and death.
A loss didn't just put him in danger, it dragged the whole world into crisis, binding him to it whether he liked it or not. As the one bearing most of the weight, he would have buckled under the pressure long ago if not for the encouragement of his powerful allies and his own growth over the past six months.
Even so, the Orange Islands trip had been a heavy one for him. The burden of saving the world had stayed on his shoulders the whole time, and that wasn't something a person relaxed under. Coming home this loose and easy was the real sign that he'd finally set it all down for a moment.
The haul from the Orange Islands had been substantial. He'd officially added Lugia Jr. to his team, captured an exceptionally gifted Snorlax, picked up a Lapras with serious potential, and landed a Crystal Onix that might be one of a kind in the world.
The four were Pokémon most Trainers would never even see in a lifetime, and Ash had brought all four home in a single month. The kind of luck that would make an Elite Four member or a Champion jealous.
After getting the shout out of his system at the edge of town, Ash led Misty and Serena inside.
Along the way, neighbors lit up at the sight of him.
"Hi, Ash, you're back!"
"Ash, where'd you travel to this time? Bring me any souvenirs?"
"Hey, Ash, another girlfriend with you? You trying to outpace Gary in that department too?"
Greetings, ribbing, and jokes flew at him from every porch, and Ash answered each one with a smile.
The "girlfriend" line didn't faze Misty in the least, but Serena's face went pink. It wasn't the first time someone had mistaken her for Ash's girlfriend. Ash already had a girlfriend, of course, so this kind of misunderstanding wasn't fun for either him or Misty, and even though Serena had her own moments of imagining it, she knew it wasn't right.
Clarifying felt awkward, though, like overstepping. If Ash and Misty weren't speaking up, what right did she have to be the one to set the record straight? So in the end, no one corrected the joke, which left a strange little knot hanging in the air.
Past the neighbors, the three finally reached Ash's door. It had only been a month, but to him it felt longer than any of his previous absences. Maybe because the trip had been so unlike the others.
He turned the doorknob and found the door already unlocked. It was the middle of the day, so Delia should be home, but leaving the door open was risky if anyone unsavory wandered by.
He pushed inside and called out, "Mom, I'm back!"
Footsteps thumped toward them, fast, and a few seconds later a woman in a white facial mask appeared in front of them, looking like a ghost. Ash, the others, and Pikachu all flinched backward.
"What kind of monster? How dare you show up in my house?"
"What are you saying? How rude! Have you forgotten your own mother in just a month?" Delia, white face mask still on, rolled her eyes. Even the smooth sheet on her face wrinkled with the effort.
Moving the facial muscles while wearing a mask was a cardinal sin of skincare. The moment she'd heard Ash's voice she'd tried to hold her excitement back and keep her expression neutral, while her body raced for the door. Then his greeting had nearly broken her, and a perfectly touching mother-and-son reunion had been wrecked by that one line.
"Mom? Is that really you? Why are you wearing a mask? You never used to use those, did you?" Ash checked once, then again, and only after confirming it was really her did he relax.
Delia smoothed the mask back into place. "The past is the past, and now is now. You think your mom isn't going to get older? How was the trip? Did it go smoothly?"
"Yeah, it was pretty relaxing. Not as much trouble as I was expecting. The Orange Islands are a great vacation spot. We had a lot of fun there." Ash brushed past it as if nothing else had happened.
No one knew a child better than their mother. After more than a decade with him, Delia could see through Ash with a single glance. After a few seconds of quiet, she gave a faint smile. "I see. So this trip ended up being the long-overdue break you needed."
"Yeah. Mom, it's lunchtime, why haven't you started cooking?" Ash felt her looking right through him and changed the subject fast.
"Oh, because someone's already on it." As Delia finished, a figure stepped slowly out of the kitchen. Ash and Misty both blurted, "Brock?!"
"Pika Pika?!"
Standing there in front of them was their former traveling companion, Brock.
When Ash and the others first reached the Orange Islands, Brock had stayed behind with Professor Ivy, chasing love. So why was Brock now in Pallet Town?
"Long time no see, Ash. Misty. And who's this?"
"She's Serena, a friend we met in the Orange Islands. She was also my summer camp friend when I was little. She started her journey last month, and right now she's kind of my apprentice." Ash planted his hands on his hips, proud of it.
Taking on an apprentice barely half a year after his own debut said plenty about how far he'd come.
Brock looked Serena over. She couldn't see his eyes, but she could feel the inspection.
For this easy-going, dark-skinned former member of Ash's team, Serena was a touch nervous, unsure whether she'd leave a good first impression.
"I see. Got it. This kid is way stronger than you were when you started out, Ash."
Ash blinked. Hey.
Stronger than him? Brock had taken one look at her. Targeting. This was definitely targeting.
"No, no, I don't know much of anything yet. Ash has been teaching me for a while, but I've only picked up a little." Serena waved her hands, mildly panicked.
"Haha, don't mind it, don't mind it. I'm only teasing. The name's Brock, a former member of Ash's team. I left for personal reasons. Let me tell you a secret. When Ash first started his journey, he genuinely didn't know anything.
The reason he's reached this point isn't because his foundation was good. It's purely because his learning ability is monstrous. So you don't need to measure yourself against him. The guy's a pure monster.
Compare yourself to him and you'll get crushed under the kind of pressure that shouldn't exist in a normal life. Just compare yourself to yourself." Brock smiled and offered Serena the gentle pep talk.
From the moment they met he'd sensed that this girl was carrying a heavy weight. Ash was good at almost everything, but he didn't read the social side of a room well. He'd probably been a touch too intense in his teaching, which would explain a lot of the pressure Serena was holding.
"Hey, hey, hey, Brock, comfort her if you want, but don't slander me. I never told Serena to measure herself against me, and I haven't been pressuring her either. If anything, I think it's amazing she's come this far in just one month." Ash rolled his eyes, indignant.
When had he ever pressured her? Whenever Serena got frustrated, he'd been the one comforting her. The emotionally clueless Ash had stopped existing the moment he got a girlfriend. The old him might really have piled it on, but now he understood you were supposed to be gentle with the girls.
And Serena's talent was real. By any normal standard she sat squarely in genius territory. There was no pressure to be felt.
Brock rubbed at the stubble on his chin, a thoughtful look settling across his face.
If it wasn't training pressure, then what was the source of the weight he'd picked up off Serena? He glanced at Ash, then at Misty, then at Serena, and a look of dawning understanding spread across his face.
So that's what it was.
"All right, all right, I know you didn't bully the new kid. Come on, come cook with me. It's been a while. Let me show you how much my cooking has improved." Brock grabbed Ash and pulled him toward the kitchen.
Ash didn't resist and asked curiously, "By the way, Brock, weren't you with Professor Ivy? Why are you "
Before he finished, the hand pulling him went limp. Brock was already squatting in a corner of the kitchen with a black cloud almost visible over his head.
Ash hit the floor and stared at him, baffled.
"What's wrong, Ash?" Misty and Serena rushed over, only to find Ash on the ground and Brock crouched in the corner.
After some careful probing, Ash and the others finally figured out the rule: for the current Brock, the words "Professor Ivy" were absolutely forbidden. His relationship with her must have ended in some kind of devastating crash. Whether she'd turned him down or they'd broken up after dating, in any case Professor Ivy had become a no-go subject for Brock. Even her name couldn't be spoken.
Within a minute, Brock was back on his feet. He and Ash put together a genuinely delicious lunch together, and afterward Ash said a quick goodbye to Delia and the others and slipped out with Pikachu.
He still had the GS Ball to deliver to Professor Oak. He wanted to get it done now, while the day was still wide open. He'd planned to bring Misty, Serena, and Brock with him.
Brock said he had to handle the dishes. Misty said she wanted to stay and catch up with Delia, and kept Serena there alongside her. So in the end only Ash and Pikachu went.
Ash's house wasn't far from Professor Oak's Laboratory, a five-minute walk at most.
At the entrance, though, he ran into someone he hadn't expected.
"Gary?" Ash looked at the back of the figure standing outside Professor Oak's Laboratory and asked, uncertain.
When the figure turned around, Ash confirmed that it really was Gary, but his presence was very different from the one he'd had at the conference. If the old Gary had carried a streak of youthful arrogance, the current Gary felt like someone who'd been through real tempering, a properly mature Trainer.
To another experienced Trainer, a single glance was enough to tell that this kind of opponent was trouble.
"Yo, Ash. So you're back in Pallet Town too."
"Yeah, just got in today. You?"
"Same."
They hadn't seen each other in a while, but the conversation slid back into rhythm without any awkwardness.
"You spent the past month in the Orange Islands? I figured you'd head straight to the Silver Conference after the Indigo Plateau ended." Ash's Orange Islands trip was no secret. By now it was common knowledge. He'd been high-profile out there, going so far as to battle Lorelei, calling out the legendary Guardian of the Sea, in a corrupted form no less, and finally taking the win. That battle had pushed his fame to a new peak.
Gary kept up with the news, so of course he knew Ash had gone to the Orange Islands. He also knew that Ash had grown stronger since the Indigo Plateau Conference. Beating Lorelei head-on was the kind of strength you could only call terrifying.
If Gary hadn't had a few adventures of his own this past month, he might already be too far behind to catch sight of Ash's dust.